


Moment of Forgiveness

by Rhys (rhyssj)



Category: NSYNC, Popslash
Genre: Implied/Referenced Cheating, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-11-13
Updated: 2002-11-13
Packaged: 2019-04-20 00:27:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14249100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhyssj/pseuds/Rhys
Summary: Lance in his life.





	Moment of Forgiveness

**Author's Note:**

> For Glace's Indigo Girls "Become You" challenge. My song was "Moment of Forgiveness."

The first time they slept together wasn’t very romantic at all. It was Lance’s birthday. Chris was sloppy drunk and telling tales about the oceans of people he’d banged, women and men both, and how, when he was rich, he would have a harem. Shit like that, he’d explained carefully, pressed warm to Lance’s side, was what famous people did. They were all about secrets and lies and strict illusions of heterosexuality. Unfamous people, he went further to say, got laid when they could and didn’t care who knew, who they did. They were somewhere in between. In Germany they were gods and in America, nothing. 

It’d sounded an awful lot like an invitation, so Lance did it. His first time. There was something sad about being an almost-famous eighteen year old virgin, and he was sick of it. He lay there still as Chris spread his legs and kissed his knees and whispered things in his ear like, “it won’t be good the first time, so we’ll do it again, until it is,” and “you’re hot, you know, so fucking hot, you have no idea.” It’d hurt something awful, which Lance hadn’t expected since he’d prepared, he thought. Lance hadn’t even come until Chris put his hot mouth on Lance’s dick and sucked. Lance came with a burst, hot and creamy into Chris’s mouth. Lance knew because they’d kissed after, and he’d gagged a little bit on the taste of it. Chris had slept right there with him, sweaty bodies glued together. 

Lance found him crying once, late on the bus and months afterwards, watching the dashed whites of the road as they drove across Sweden. When asked why, Chris looked straight at him and said, “I don’t know how you ever forgave me.” 

~~~ 

They threw him out of the space program like he was worthless, so he bought his way back in. So much money, he thought when he’d signed the cheque, but he refused to go home with nothing to show. He finished the training. When it was done, guards watched until he’d packed all his things and piled them into the car Freddy had rented. It’d been snowing, that day. It’d only been October. The snow tasted clean on Lance’s tongue. 

He couldn’t say he was sad to say goodbye. He wasn’t. They hadn’t postponed his dream, they’d killed it, and he would forever associate that with Russia. He would never come back. It didn’t matter if Nsync lucked out and caught a wave of international fame, or if he finally learned to act and opened a film in Moscow, Lance would never step foot in Russia again. 

Freddy kissed him, like it made anything better. 

Lance let him, because he knew it didn’t. 

~~~ 

In England, he met up with Justin and let himself get drunk. They didn’t talk much. So much time away had made them almost like strangers. Lance found he couldn’t even talk to his dad for days when he visited after months on tour. Joey would be the same, Lance thought as the alcohol mixed with melancholy and settled heavy in his chest. JC and Chris, too. 

He’d left messages to Joey, long ones, on his answering machine. He spoke about memories he had of times when he felt young and innocent. Lance said he wasn’t sad he’d grown up. He knew how the world worked. He knew it had to happen. But he remembered his teenage years as much simpler than they had been, so he focussed on them. The present seemed complicated, like the finely woven web of a spider. He didn’t quite understand how it all came together anymore. 

~~~ 

Chris’s house smelled new. It looked like it too, with a silver Panasonic sound system and black leather furniture in the living room . Lance walked ran his palm over the cool surface of the fabric. It squeaked under the pressure. Justin had given him keys and a code to Chris’s house; Lance hadn’t told Chris to expect him. 

It seemed empty without the dogs. He still remembered Chris’s grin of pride as he walked around and showed off the new puppy he’d bought. There was a list. First, was the DJ stuff, turntables and a microphone, but second, was a dog, called Busta after Busta Rhymes. They’d met years later, Chris and Busta, and Chris told him all about his dog. Busta Rhymes had called him a weird little motherfucker and bought Chris drinks for the rest of the night. 

Lance undressed carefully in the hall. The cool air prickled his skin. There was a mirror hung on the wall, surrounded by morbid paintings by Giger. In it, Lance’s skin looked pale white, corpse-like in the way it stretched over his bones. He smiled wryly at his reflection. 

Chris snored softly, sprawled on his back. He was out of control in his waking life, but in sleep, he never moved. Hadn’t ever, Lance thought, at least for as long as Lance had known him. Their relationship had always lived more vibrantly in the dark than the light of day. It allowed Lance understanding of the difference between the sun and the moon. 

He walked without sound to the bed and lifted the heavy down comforter. Chris’s eyes flickered open, but before he could speak, Lance put a firm palm over his belly and circled his navel. 

“Shh,” Lance said and slid up to him, full body, resting there against his heart. Lance moved his mouth over the buzzed hair to feel it new against his lips, then sank down, body resting lightly over Chris. With a sigh, Chris closed his eyes, and Lance finally, after months of painful consciousness, slept. 

~~~ 

They were watching Legends of the Fall when Stacy asked, “out of the three brothers, which one would you want?” They were home alone, their parents out on a “date”, with the blankets tugged to their chin as they sat together on the couch. The house smelled like popcorn. Lance’s fingers were slippery with butter. He didn’t say anything until she nudged him. “Come on. Which one?” 

“Samuel,” Lance answered firmly. Stacy had always talked to him like that, engaging him in games played between teenaged girls, making him pick a preference. Sometimes he did, and sometimes he didn’t. But she only talked to him like that when they were alone, and Lance understood the difference. 

“Really? I like Tristan,” she said. On the screen, when Lance looked back, the naked backside of Tristan came into view. Tanned, smooth, the muscles tightly bunching under Brad Pitt’s skin, and Lance bit his lip hard enough that his eyes prickled with pain. Stacy nudged him again and smiled. “You can change your vote, twerp.” 

“Samuel,” Lance repeated. 

“You have no taste,” Stacy said, but let it go. Lance blushed as the scene went further, lifting the edge of the blankets to his nose and shifting uncomfortably. Stacy didn’t seem to notice, just lifted her hand and ruffled his hair. She was the best big sister in the world. 

~~~ 

1997 was important for two big reasons: Nsync finally got off the ground, and Lance came out. The former happened big, a huge explosion when they didn’t really expect it. The latter happened small, with Joey and Stacy the first ones he told. Stacy, of course, hadn’t been surprised at all, and hugged him, and said she was happy he could say it, even when he cried a little and told her he was scared. Joey had asked him. Lance never could lie to him. 

During a photo shoot, Joey sat down next to Lance. Lance had been sulking miserably in the corner, hating his stupid big feet. Joey hemmed and hawed for a while before leaning in close and saying, “you know what Chris is doing, right?” 

Lance looked up and shrugged a little and went back to scratching at his calf. They’d painted him gold, and his skin burned with it. It was difficult to get to the itch, but running the blunt edge of his nail over the paint didn’t chip it off. They’d already had to touch up the paint on his face, from when Chris had spit water at him. 

“Lance. You want me to talk to him, get him to back off?” 

Lance shifted under Joey’s look and shrugged again. He didn’t, but he didn’t want to tell Joey that. Lou already watched him like Lance was going to mess everything up. Lou wasn’t around much anymore, but he had his people on Lance’s case all the time. When his mom wasn’t around, it was the worst. She wasn’t around much, these days. 

“Unless it’s something you want, then I’m cool,” Joey said quietly. 

“I’m fine,” Lance said, “and he’s fine. We just have fun.” 

“More than flirting?” Joey asked. He kept his voice so slow that Lance had to remain perfectly still to hear him. Flustered, he shook his head. Joey had sex all the time with girls, real sex. Lance couldn’t count the number of times JC had shown up and slept on the floor to let Joey have his privacy. Chris, when he roomed with Joey, had just always slept through it or didn’t mind at all. Lance was never quite sure. 

“You want it to be more than flirting?” 

“Joey,” Lance muttered. His face burned. He was suddenly glad for the paint, even if it gave him hives. Joey looked at him expectantly. Lance had come out to Stacy four weeks before when she had visited over winter break. The same feeling was in his bones, sitting next to Joey like he was. “I guess. I mean, if he wanted more, I would, too.” 

Joey nodded. 

“I’m. I mean, I’m g-gay, you know,” Lance continued, his voice wobbling unsteadily. The words had barely come out at all, and he looked away the moment he said it. He hated telling people. He wished they just knew, or being gay wasn’t such a huge thing, or anything other than this awkward obligation to announce it. “Don’t tell anyone,” he rushed to add. 

“Not until you’re ready,” Joey said and draped a heavy arm over Lance’s shoulder, pulling him close. Joey kissed him in his golden hair, and Lance exhaled against him, his chest painfully tight with a breath he hadn’t known he held. When Chris walked by, Lance found it hard to look at him. His neck still itched where the water had splashed him. 

~~~ 

Chris had beautiful lips. Lance had always thought so. They weren’t strangely uniform, like Justin’s, or sexily pouty like JC’s, or skilfully small like Joey’s. They were just beautiful. The moment he woke, Lance licked over the soft skin then dipped his tongue inside. Chris was still held by sleep, but he kissed back with unconscious skill. He woke only when his hand settled on Lance’s back, as if gripping something real terrified him. 

“Jesus!” 

Chris lifted his head so fast that their skulls cracked together. Chris’s chin bumped Lance’s lower lip and his teeth sliced into it. Warm, rusty blood spilled onto his tongue. Lance rolled away and sat up, pressing the back of his hand to his mouth. When he pulled it away, spider-webs of blood spiralled over his skin, a deep sombre maroon. 

“God, Lance.” 

The mattress shifted. Lance didn’t turn around. 

“Shit, where the hell did you go?” 

Chris’s fingers spread over his back, pressing into his skin. Lance shuddered. The touch was firm but gentle, like Chris knew it would hurt him. It did, Lance thought, unable to lift his head. The touch hurt more than he wanted it to after all this time. Chris pulled his hand away. For that, Lance was grateful. 

“You back for good?” 

“Yeah,” Lance said. He poked at his bloody lip, pulling more of his life to the tips of his fingers. Hesitantly, Lance licked at them then stopped, the metallic taste on his tongue. Lance felt ridiculous, suddenly, sitting in Chris’s bed, naked as the day he was born. 

“We missed you,” Chris said. He touched a single finger to the small of Lance’s back. 

“I missed you, too,” Lance replied. 

~~~ 

Freddy was a starfucker, but then, Lance was one, too. It was fun, until it got serious, until Freddy said, “hey, I can come to Russia, be your bodyguard and whatever,” and Lance said yes. Lance didn’t know much about him, who his family was, where he came from. They liked the same clubs and the same drinks. They liked the same boring things in bed. 

But Lance shut him out when he needed someone the most. When it started going downhill, when he worked so hard that his heart hurt from the exhaustion and he cried hot tears of frustration, Lance locked him out and Freddy never fought to be let in. 

“They’re not going to let me go,” Lance said, his mouth pressed to the receiver, “I keep hoping they will, but I used up my one free pass. I never told y’all how much I loved y’all for fighting for me. I loved the group. I _love_ the group. Y’all kept me, when you didn’t have to, and there’s not a day I don’t thank God. Not a day. Y’all think that I don’t, but I’m nothing without it, without y’all. And the singing. I love the singing. Listen, just listen.” 

He sang into the phone, some tune he barely remembered about the stars and the sky and Galileo. He wasn’t good with lyrics, so he stumbled through the song, but he sang so hard that his throat seized up. When he started crying, it seemed like he always had been. He could barely get the words out. 

“I’m so lonely. Oh, God. Take me away from here. Oh, God. Please make this end.” 

Numbly, he hung up. He didn’t even know which one of them he’d called. 

It hadn’t mattered, anyway. No one had come. 

~~~ 

It wasn’t until six months later that Chris and Lance were alone again, sitting together on the couch, both stone cold sober. Lance hadn’t wanted to go out; Chris had popped a kneecap during the performance that day and was nursing it with an ice pack. They were watching tapes that Joey’s brother had sent. Behind the Music, as if they needed the reminder or the warning. 

“Is your knee all right?” 

“No,” Chris said. He kept his eyes on the television, blinking every time the screen flickered. His mouth curved downward, lips folded over his teeth. Lance wished he could take it back, his birthday, what they’d done. Chris felt guilty, and Lance never meant for that to happen. Lance had just wanted to do it, to get it over with, and had simply trusted Chris with the task. Lance didn’t know how to tell Chris that. 

“Stacy and Ford are getting married,” Lance said. 

“Good for them.” 

Lance thought Chris’s back must be hurting something awful. He had to lean forward to keep the ice on his knee. The couch was too narrow for him to lie down and let Lance sit there, too. Lance got up and put his hand on Chris’s knee and lifted, ignoring Chris’s hiss of pain. It only lasted a second, and Chris moved with it to make the pain lessen. Lance slipped under his legs, draping them over his lap, and put his hand on the ice to hold it there. 

“You little fucker,” Chris said, but his voice held no malice. He looked sad, so Lance grinned at him, warm as he could, and wasn’t even too hurt when Chris didn’t smile back. Chris didn’t smile at him, period. Lance didn’t want to be a bad memory. 

The room was steamy hot. Lance realised he didn’t even know which Behind the Music they were watching and, more, that he didn’t care. The ice under his fingers barely touched him, and when Chris’s breathing slowed, Lance took his hand away and put it on Chris’s thigh instead. He rubbed through the thick denim of Chris’s shorts. 

“Stop that,” Chris muttered. 

So Lance did. 

~~~ 

Stacy had been away at a friend’s overnight and came home with dark rings of exhaustion under her eyes. Before stumbling off for a nap, she pressed an envelope into Lance’s hand and whispered, “don’t tell momma,” and kissed him on the forehead. He kept it in his hand until she left then was scared to open it. She’d been so serious. He wondered if it was something awful. 

He fished his Swiss Army knife from his pocket and pulled out the little blade. Carefully, he sliced along the top then refolded the knife, setting it down on the dresser. His heart beat wildly. He stuck two fingers into the envelope then pulled out the square paper. When it was unfolded, Lance nearly dropped it. His first thought was that it must be a sin. His second, much less coherent, was _wow_. 

She’d given him two pages ripped from a skin magazine. With men, Lance thought wildly, and shoved them under his pillow. He listened for his momma, but the slam of the door meant she was back in the garden, tending her vegetables. Cautiously, he pulled the pages out again and looked at them. 

In time, his favourite came to be the brunet with the long dick and big balls, his legs spread wide, showing Lance everything. Lance called him Julian in his head, since it sounded exotic and dangerous. He spent hours in his room with a bottle of baby oil, the wrinkled pages clutched between one hand, the other on his dick. His first time, Lance decided, would be with someone like this, a man who loved him and had seen the world and had handsome dark eyes. 

It’d been a good dream. 

~~~ 

He’d met Freddy at a party. It had been the first and last time Lance had done coke. Freddy had given it to him. It he hadn’t been so fucked in the head after, playing with his burning nose, Joey wouldn’t have noticed. There were few people in the world who had been in a fistfight with Joey Fatone. Lance was, unfortunately, one of them. 

“Who gave it to you?” 

“No one,” Lance insisted. His nose was bleeding onto his shirt, not from the cocaine but from Joey’s fist. It was curled into Lance’s collar, lifting him to his toes, standing wet in someone’s backyard. Lance had no clue where they’d ended up. He’d run when he’d seen Joey’s face. “Fuck, Joe.” Lance pushed at his hands. “Lemme go.” 

“How much did you take?” 

“It was just a little,” Lance said and held his fingers the slightest bit apart. He was still drunk, which was the whole problem, he thought. The coke had made him feel a lot better, like he was a big-name rock star. At least they respected rock stars. No one gave a shit about him. 

“It’s always just a little with you,” Joey said and heaved him up. 

“It was one hit,” Lance muttered. The world twirled around him. 

“One too many, you idiot fuck.” 

“Mean,” Lance muttered, tripping over his own feet. He didn’t recognise the street at all, but then, he couldn’t see much. It’d been a good party, until then. “Why’re you so, mean? Having a little,” he held his fingers apart again, “fun.” 

“I know your type of fun, you ass. So listen. I’m only gonna say this once. The drinking’s outta hand, Lance, and tonight is just another step. I’m not gonna preach, you know I never would, but you’re out of control, okay? And, dude, you are scaring the _shit_ outta me.” 

“‘m fine,” Lance muttered, but the grip of Joey’s hand into his arm told him he wasn’t. He never did it again, though he didn’t stop drinking, and when the Russians rolled around a few months later, he was glad he hadn’t. They wouldn’t have let him go, otherwise. 

~~~ 

Chris offered breakfast, and Lance was terribly hungry, so Lance followed him downstairs, keeping his eyes on the wide expanse of Chris’s back. His fingers spread as if they wanted to touch the skin, to trace the muscles underneath. Chris stopped abruptly, and Lance’s hands rested in the place he had eyed, moving up and across Chris’s shoulders. Lance kissed the back of Chris’s neck slowly, like a lover. 

They fucked in the kitchen, Lance’s knees over Chris’s shoulders, his back flat against the hard surface of the table. The wooden legs jittered across the ceramic tile each time Lance lifted his hips, pushing into Chris’s mouth or onto the crooked finger inside him. Lance’s arms arched over his head; his fingers gripped the edge to keep himself from sliding. Inside, his heart beat furiously against the jail of his ribs. When Chris moved his mouth to it, tongue hot and slickly wet on Lance’s skin, Lance came all over the fingers gripping him. 

“Is that why you’re here?” Chris finally asked, after. Chris hadn’t come, but he’d wanted to. Chris’s cock stayed heavy with blood, outlined against the thin boxers he wore, but when Lance reached for it, Chris grabbed his wrist and held it. Ashamed, Lance looked away. Chris’s grip on Lance’s wrist loosened. “If it is, then, well. I don’t know, Lance. I don’t even know what you’re doing in my house.” 

“I can go,” Lance said. Shame prickled over his skin, mixing with cool sweat. He felt raw, exposed, sitting on Chris’s table, his body starved from overwork. He looked like Chris had, when he’d first joined, when Chris hadn’t had enough food to keep himself fed, when he’d been too proud to ask for it. 

“You can stay,” Chris said. “I just didn’t expect you is all.” 

“I didn’t expect to be here,” Lance said. Tears burned at his eyes, and when he bowed his head, Chris was there, against him, arms wrapped around his shaking shoulders. He smelled the same, Lance thought, burying his face against Chris’s neck. He smelled exactly the same. 

~~~ 

“Joey says I should talk to you,” Chris had said as he dropped his bags on the floor. They’d stared at each other. Chris, unwilling to go first; Lance, unwilling to believe him. They had stayed like that, locked in each other’s eyes, until Lance thought the world had stopped with them. In that last moment, it’d been an easy step to kiss him. 

Months of bitter frustration had led to a tangle of desperation on a bed in the middle of whatever European country it was where they’d found themselves. Lance pulled off his own shirt and knew the test was this: if Chris kept his on, it was over. If he didn’t, it would be better. Lance believed nothing could be worse. 

Chris fiddled with the hem of his shirt before yanking it off. 

Immediately, Lance was there, grabbing at him, kissing at him. He’d waited so long. Chris slid down Lance’s body and pressed a tongue to his belly, flat and wet, against the smooth flesh that covered there. The point of Chris’s tongue followed the dip that split his body, leaving a trail of water to mark where he’d been. 

Lance held his breath until his jeans were down, his cock out. He thought he should have been embarrassed, but he wasn’t. Lance just watched Chris lick at him and hold the flat of his tongue to Lance’s dick. Slowly, Chris dragged his mouth from base to tip, then took Lance inside, lips pulled taut. Lance came at that. It had sparked first in the centre of his chest. 

After, Lance had kissed Chris. This time, he didn’t gag. Instead, Lance put his mouth on Chris’s skin and mapped every road, from the rough skin of his elbows to the damp spot behind his knees. He let his hands roam Chris’s body, holding him still as Lance took Chris into his mouth. _Finally_ , Lance thought. He didn’t know what to do, hadn’t ever done it before, so when Chris came, he felt _pride_ then, in spite of himself, _awe_. 

“I never meant to hurt you,” Chris said later, lying behind him, a hand steadily circling Lance’s stomach. “But I’ll do it again, Lance. I’ll do it again, because I’m like that, because I don’t know a good thing when I see it. I’m going to fuck this up so bad, you have no idea.” 

“I’ve been warned,” Lance murmured. He wriggled back until Chris’s cock was snug in the cleft of his ass. Like a puzzle, Lance thought, and tipped his head until he could feel Chris’s warm breath on his neck. “Now, stop talking about it.” 

~~~ 

Lance would later admit that, technically, he’d lost his virginity to a tool from the set his dad had given him for his sixteenth birthday. It’d shamed him at the time, almost beyond all imagine, but the hard plastic of the handle as it first slid in, coated with medicinal smelling hand lotion, had both hurt incredibly and pulled the deepest pleasure he’d ever felt from his belly. 

Lance had clutched Julian in one hand, imagining him inside, big and thick and hard, like a man would feel, and kissed the pillow, twisting his neck desperately to get the soft fabric on his lips. He’d moaned a bit, but only because he was home alone, and said things like, “I love you,” and, “you’re beautiful.” 

Lance hadn’t moved the screwdriver, hadn’t dared, but he had rolled his hips a little and clenched around the base of the handle. Lance had barely even eased his fist over his cock when he’d come. It had hit him so hard that he didn’t get soft. 

The screwdriver hurt a little to push out. It felt like he was taking a shit, which scared him, but when it was gone, he couldn’t stop himself from touching. Easily, his fingers slicked inside. Lance braced his feet flat on the bed and lifted his hips, spreading his knees, poking deep. The picture of Julian fluttered to the ground, crumpled across the face. Sweating hard, Lance pulled at his cock until he came a second time, moaning desperately into his pillow, pleasure glued to his slick skin. 

After, Lance had felt sick with guilt. He’d washed the screwdriver and put it back in the toolbox, shoving it under his bed. His ass was still open and a little painful now, so he lay on his stomach and napped. Later, after he’d gone to the bathroom, he looked for blood and imagined he saw it. There was a tightness in his belly that he tried to ignore but couldn’t. Yet still, a part of him was excited about it, what he’d finally done. It’d felt good, and that was maybe a little scary, too. 

When his momma came home with Stacy in tow, Lance had smiled at them and acted like he always did, like nothing had changed, like he hadn’t just realised something incredibly terrifying about himself. He set the table, and said grace, and spoke to his dad about baseball. 

~~~ 

Lance hadn’t really expected much from Chris going into it. He expected hot sex when he wanted it, a warm body to share his bed and maybe a little drama. There was all of that and more, so much more. There were sides to Chris he hadn’t even thought were there. Gentle sides, loving sides, the way Lance would catch him looking, openly, innocently. Chris was no virgin, of course, but Chris admitted, six months into it, that he hadn’t ever dated anyone before, not seriously, not for any time longer than two weeks. 

It was Chris who came home with him to Mississippi, driving all night from Orlando to Clinton in Chris’s old Honda. Chris, who went on a walk with Stacy so Lance could come out to his momma. It’d been a painful, long conversation where Lance had danced around the real topic and talked about how glad he was to be back, and how much he wouldn’t miss Europe, and how happy he was. 

“Sweetie, calm down. Tell me whatever it is you need to say to me,” she had said, finally, and held his hand as he sniffled and cried a little, stupidly. He hadn’t wanted her to love him any less, and though everyone had assured him she probably knew already, and Chris’s mom had long ago accepted Chris, he was still sick with worry. 

“Momma,” he said, “I’m gay, momma.” 

“Are you sure, baby?” 

Lance nodded and cried a little bit more. He couldn’t help it. When she squeezed his fingers, he looked up. She smiled at him, brushing her fingers through the bleach-blond straw of his hair, and plucked his tears with her thumb. Gently, she pinched the tip of his chin. 

“I’m glad you told me,” she said. “Come on, I’ll make you some cocoa. It’ll be fine.” 

“I have to tell dad.” 

“I know. He’ll be fine with it, too,” she said. She rubbed his back, like mommas did, and offered him a tissue for his nose. She used another to wipe his face. When he had settled down, she pressed a kiss to his forehead and kept it there for a long time before she let him go. 

She made him warm cocoa with marshmallows bobbing across the top and made him a sandwich, too. Peanut butter and bananas, fried. Somehow, he felt like he had let her down. Stacy was getting married and would have plenty of babies to offer as grandchildren, which made him sad and jealous, all at once. He couldn’t think of things like that with Chris. There still existed a distance between them. It was hidden by the warmth and happiness Lance felt when he was with Chris, but sometimes, he would sense it rear its ugly head, when Chris said something hurtful, to him or to someone else, or joked about how he was going to screw it all up. 

“You got someone who loves you, baby?” 

Lance nodded. 

“He’s a bit old for you,” she said, and Lance nodded again. He was. Chris liked to remind him of it, how he was eight when Lance was born, living in a car, already understanding poverty in ways Lance never would. It seemed they were as different as night and day, but Lance truly did love Chris in all the ways that mattered. “Does he treat you well?” 

“Yep.” 

“And you’re safe?” 

Lance blushed. “Yes, momma.” 

“And he doesn’t make you do anything you don’t want to?” 

“No, momma,” Lance mumbled, his hands on his warm cheeks. “He’s good.” 

“I know, baby. I’m just checking.” 

And that was it. Chris came back with Stacy, who later said that she liked him even more than she had before, and Lance could keep him with her _blessing_. And it was good, he thought as he lay in bed, Chris within reaching distance on a cot, snoring softly. It was better than good, even. It was looking to be perfect. 

~~~ 

Chris had been reluctant to leave him, but he had obligations to Justin, who called twice a day and had Trace calling even more often. Chris and Trace talked for half an hour sometimes about Justin’s out-of-control neuroses. Lance told him to go, that he would stay right there, in Miami, in Chris’s house. Chris left No Doubt tickets behind, putting them by Lance’s head as he packed last minute. 

“You sure you’re okay?” Chris asked. 

“Just tired,” Lance murmured. He felt cold again. The blankets were up to his chin, and he was sleepily irritated. Every time he started drifting off, Chris woke him up. Sleep was such a slippery thing. He resented being dragged from it. He didn’t even know how long he’d been there, back in Chris’s bed, in his life. They’d had sex again and again, until Lance had finally remapped Chris’s body. Time away had made it into foreign land. 

~~~ 

They lived in a hotel room, as much a penthouse as Russia could offer, and it was nice in a way that wasn’t considered nice back in America. Lance had started into his training right away, still exhausted from the tour, and burnout, generally, on everything. He’d been annoyed by Freddy’s presence at first. Lance didn’t like this man he fucked but barely knew being in his space. With the guys, he could take it, but not Freddy, who squeezed the toothpaste tube in the middle and peed on the toilet seat, always refusing to lift it up. 

Still, it was nice to have Freddy there, to welcome Lances home with he returned with tears brimming in his eyes, frustrated and tired and angry. When Lance got pissed, it was nice to yell at someone real, someone who fought back. When Lance got lonely, it was nice to hold Freddy close. Nicer, still, to look up at him when they fucked, to look down at him when Freddy sucked him off, to look at Freddy when he slept and wonder how he’d gotten there, in that bed and across the ocean with a man whose childhood pet Lance couldn’t name, if Freddy had one at all. 

“How was your day?” Freddy always asked, offering a plate of pasta or a sandwich. 

“Fine,” Lance always replied, eating the food that was given. 

~~~ 

Joey showed up and went to the concert with him, though Lance _really_ hadn’t wanted to go. It was fun, though. They moshed and drank and Lance got hit on by more women than he could count, which he deflected to Joey. Gwen chatted them up backstage and offered champagne. Lance was morosely wasted by the time they stumbled into Joey’s house. 

“You fucking him again?” Joey asked as Lance sat on the tiles, trying to untie his boots. His feet ached. Without looking up, he nodded and pinched his lips together. Joey collapsed heavily on the floor beside him. “Dude. Not good.” 

Lance yanked at his knotted lace. “Did I ask you?” 

“You never do, man. You should, mind you, but whatever.” 

Lance got up and looked through Joey’s fridge until he found cold pizza. It smelled all right. Joey had only been home for a day, so it had to be good. Lance wandered outside, into the cooling dampness of late night. He looked up at the stars. The test rocket had blown up when they tried to send it, but the real rocket hadn’t. He could have been there. He’d been so close. 

“Do you know what you’re doing, going back to him?” 

Lance looked back briefly then up again, to the night sky. “I hope so.” 

Joey settled a hand over his shoulder and said, “okay.” 

~~~ 

Lance had just gotten home when he heard the phone ring. His momma hung up a minute later after saying, angrily, “no, okay? The answer is no. Stop phoning my house before I call the police,” but when he asked about it, she said, “nothing, sweetie. How was school?” 

When she ran out to get milk, he went upstairs to jerk off. He’d been thinking about it all day at school, hard under the baggy denim of his jeans. Sometimes, he got paranoid the other boys knew what he thought about. In gym class, it was the worst, but he’d learned a long time ago to look briefly, like he was comparing the sizes of their cocks and nothing more. 

Lance had just undressed from the waist down when the phone rang. Though his momma had left him with instructions not to answer it, his dad’s previous instructions to always answer the phone in case of an emergency made him pick it up. 

“Hello?” 

“Hello there. Is this Lance?” 

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. She didn’t sound like she was from Mississippi but somewhere South. He recognised the lazy comfort of her speech. Suddenly aware of himself, he tugged a pair of sweats up his legs, holding the phone between his chin and his shoulder. “My mother isn’t in right now. May I take a message?” 

“Lance, can you just tell her that Lynn Harless called? And if you can, ask her to at least consider what I’m offering. She’ll know what I’m talking about it. Lance, sweetie, it was lovely to talk to you. You sound like a very nice boy.” 

“Thank you, ma’am.” 

With his momma got home, he told her a woman named Lynn Harless had called. She sent him straight up to his room without supper for disobeying her. They yelled at each other until Lance stomped up the stairs and slammed his door. Later, though, she came with a plate of meat and potatoes and a big glass of milk. The phone had been ringing off the hook all evening. 

“Sweetie, I’m sorry,” she said and brushed the hair from his eyes. He was still angry with her but nodded, his stomach rumbling loudly. He picked at the plate as she talked and rubbed her hands together, the swish of her flesh like the hum of a cricket. “Everyday I look at you and feel my heart swell. I’m so proud of the man you’ve become, Lance, but you’re still my baby.” 

“Are you okay, momma?” 

She smiled at him and nodded, cupping his cheek with a warm hand. “I’m fine, but I think something wonderful is about to happen for you. I can’t promise anything, but after talking to Mr. Westbrook, I think I’m going to have to let you go.” 

“Momma?” 

She explained to him that a group in Orlando had looked all over for a bass and hadn’t been able to find anyone, except him. Lance listened intently, watching his mother’s eyes. He would have to audition, she said, but Mr. Westbrook had already assured them he could sing, and if he meshed with the group, he was automatically in. They, his momma and him, were booked on a flight the next afternoon, but it could be cancelled if he didn’t want to do it. Lance had plenty of dreams, but being a singer had always seemed like the least likely to bloom. Now, listening to his momma speak, he couldn’t keep the smile from his face. 

“I want to do it, momma,” Lance told her. 

“I know, baby. Let’s get you packed.” 

They’d put all his best clothes into a suitcase, and Stacy had cried a bit as she helped style his hair. Lance’s popularity had never stemmed from his hip fashion sense, so Stacy had taken him out the minute the stores opened to buy new jeans and trendier shirts. She told him, “if they ask, you have a girl who loves you. Just don’t tell them it’s only your sister,” and he nodded. He knew what she was saying. He knew already how to lie about _that_. 

In the mirror, Lance barely recognised himself, and he wore his new clothes out of the store. Already, he felt different. He didn’t know why, but inside, he was steady. It would work, all of it, because he wanted it to happen. He could taste the determination in his throat, thick like honey. Things didn’t often work out for Lance. He hadn’t been at the top of his class and didn’t have a shot at a single ivy league school. He hadn’t been able to date girls and fall in love with them. There would be a thousand more things he would fail at, but this would be different. Lance would go to Orlando, and they would love him, and he would finally be the man he wanted to be. Things would finally work out. 

~~~ 

When it started to look like they were in it for the long run, Johnny made them get girlfriends. Danielle and Danielle. It looked like Lance had taken the more wholesome one and Chris had taken the sexier one, but Lance had known _his_ Danielle from various parties and liked her a lot. She knew what she was going into it and was eager to help. Chris called her a fag hag, and she laughed with him, sitting in Lance’s lap. 

Lance liked Dani, he _did_. She was really pretty and could take Chris’s antics almost as well as Lance could, but she wasn’t doing it to be kind to Chris. She was using him as a ladder to better things, and that was the part Lance didn’t like very much. Chris had shrugged when Lance mentioned it and said he didn’t give a fuck, at least it looked like he was banging a hot chick when he was banging a _really_ hot guy. Lance had laughed and let Chris blow him, right there on the couch, his pants open just enough to get his cock out. 

Danielle found a real boyfriend, so Lance didn’t make her remain with him, pretending, but Dani stayed around. She was better at Play Station than Lance was, better at basketball and street hockey, better at in-line skating, a better drinker, better with people, better with everything. Dani was perfect, and he wasn’t, but it was still Lance who went to bed with Chris every night. That, at least, gave him some comfort. 

~~~ 

Lance didn’t know how many tears were in him, but there seemed to be an ocean of sadness trying to drain out of his eyes. After Joey left him in Miami, and Chris still hadn’t come back, the crying had started. At first, he’d laughed at himself, but when he realised he couldn’t stop, he climbed into bed and tried to sleep. 

Worn thin. That was how he felt, like the friction of the last few months, the last few years, his whole life, had finally rubbed down to the most basic pieces of him. Any further and there would be nothing left, not a single damn thing. His momma called him and he cried to her on the phone but wouldn’t tell her where he was, just that he was safe and warm. 

Chris came back and found him like that, lying in bed, a pillow hugged to his chest. Lance let him climb under the covers and snuggle up close and touch his hair gently. God, Lance thought, lying there in Chris’s arms and staring at Chris’s face, Chris looked so old. They were beginning to show, the harsh years that Chris held in his past. 

“Tell me about Russia,” Chris said. His fingers fluttered up and down Lance’s back. 

“I don’t know if I’m ready,” Lance admitted. He kissed a spot on Chris’s chest, the black hair tickling his lips. Under the fuzzy skin, Lance could feel Chris’s heart and moved his hand there. Beneath the covers, he shifted his naked legs, hooking one between Chris’s, knotting them close. “But I guess I can try. It’s long. I might cry.” 

“Lance, man. You’ve been crying since you got here.” 

Once upon a time, Chris would have meant that teasingly or, even before that, meanly, but Lance looked up and saw no such thing. Lance smiled at him, and Chris puffed out his cheeks, his eyes lit with kindness. “It’s boring,” Lance said. 

“Humour me.” 

Slowly, like he’d almost forgotten, Lance told Chris all that he could remember, every little useless memory, like the hand soap they’d used in the washrooms or the brand of shoes he’d worn when they dropped him in the woods. It was like old times, except he knew it wasn’t. 

~~~ 

During the lawsuit, Lance was sure they’d break up. They’d survived him collapsing and going into the hospital but just barely. Chris had been insane with guilt for weeks after, and Lance had felt worse and worse about not having told him, but they’d survived and come through it stronger than ever. The lawsuit stretched them both to a breaking point, like an elastic band about to snap. 

“Are you guys okay?” JC asked hesitantly after a particularly vicious fight. Sometimes, Lance didn’t even know they were arguing. Chris would say something, and he would answer, and he’d know, right after, that it’d been a fight and he’d just made it worse. There had been screaming for this one, loud and angry. “If you’re not, man, I dunno. You guys are fine?” 

“He’s just guilty,” Lance said quietly, watching Chris brood on the balcony, smoking a joint. Joey had tried to get close to him and had been yelled at. Justin hadn’t even dared to step a foot in Chris’s direction, and JC had taken the safer route: Lance. “We’re good.” 

“Good,” JC repeated and hugged Lance when he nodded, head heavy on Lance’s shoulder. The guys had been worried at first about what they were trying to do, the strange relationship thing, but with Chris and Lance, seeing was believing. Lance understood how important it was they make it work. If they didn’t, it could fuck everything up. Lance vowed it never would. He loved the group too much. 

Later, when the others had gone to bed, Lance went outside to sit with Chris, bringing Chris his guitar. It was a thing they did. Chris had tried to teach Lance how to play, but he didn’t have the fingers for it. His were meant for the keys of a piano, his long and delicate fingers. Chris would play and sing, and sometimes, Lance would sing with him. Lance knew Chris thought it was because he didn’t love singing like the rest of them did, but the truth was that Lance loved it so much that most of the time he couldn’t get the song out. Instead, he listened to Chris’s voice and loved it through him. 

~~~ 

Soon, it started feeling almost normal, being at Chris’s house. His pillow started smelling like the gel he used and not like Chris. Lance convinced Chris to buy him three packages of underwear and, after washing them, Lance put each new pair of boxer-briefs in Chris’s drawer. That was how they’d always done it. Chris’s were the free-ranging undies; his, neatly folded into squares. 

Chris started cooking for him, “to put meat on his bones,” Chris said. Lance had never liked Chris’s cooking, but most days, Lance could barely lift himself out of bed, and it was easier to accept it. It was better than he remembered, and Chris ate with him, usually in bed, watching hockey games on satellite tv. 

One morning, as they sat in bed eating french toast, Lance caught Chris watching him openly. Self-consciously, he brushed a hand over his face, looking for the sticky residue of syrup, and when he found none, asked, “what?” His voice was twinged with mild exasperation. 

“Just looking,” Chris replied. 

“Well, quit it,” Lance said. 

“You’re just so handsome, Mr. Bass. I can scarcely control myself.” Chris fluttered a hand to his chest, batting his long, dark lashes. His words were peppered with the worst Southern accent Lance had ever heard. In all the years, Chris had never been able to pick it up. 

“Fuck off,” Lance said but couldn’t keep from smiling so big that his cheeks hurt. 

Lance leaned into Chris, at first only to touch his forehead to Chris’s shoulder but then to kiss him. These days, they fucked more often than they kissed. It wasn’t right, Lance thought, licking into Chris’s mouth, holding his fingers to Chris’s throat. It had to mean more than that. 

~~~ 

They’d been early to the airport by hours, and it wasn’t yet four in the morning. They’d expected a snowstorm and got nothing instead. Seating in the waiting area, Freddy had already fallen asleep across a row of orange plastic chairs. There had been a party earlier in the evening, the last one they would attend together in Russia, the last one period. Lance had felt the finality of that thought like a nail to his wrist. 

Lance roamed the airport, adrenaline pumping through his veins, until finally, he asked to change his flight, not to Orlando but to London instead. He knew Justin was there for a week. They squeezed him onto a flight that left in half an hour, and Lance assured them he didn’t mind that his luggage wouldn’t get to him. He was a pop star. He could buy more. 

In the bathroom, sitting on the toilet, he wrote a note to Freddy. It was longer than he expected, but he folded it up and wrote “read me” across the front. Freddy slept heavily, always slightly drunk when stumbling into bed, always slightly hungover when waking from it. Between his fingers, Lance threaded the paper then he ran to the gate, out of breath, giddy with guilt. 

On the plane, he kept the barf bag clutched in one hand, the other pressed to the window. It was still dark outside as if the world had disappeared, like it knew Lance had turned the lights off in that room of his life. No more, he thought, the engine rumbling beneath his feet, no more. 

~~~ 

No Strings Attached sold 2.4 million copies in one week. When Lance found that out, he knew things would be all right. He screamed into his fist in the washroom, hiding his relief, his joy, but he laughed loudly when Chris swooped him off his feet and tossed him onto the bed. The sex was hot and fast, their cocks sliding against each other, held close by their bellies, slick with sweat and precum. They kept their fingers tangled, arms stretched above their hands, Lance’s legs wrapped around Chris’s waist, pushing against him. They’d done it until they were exhausted then they did it again, laughing and blissfully in love. 

The next few months were a blur of touring and promotion and other wonderful things. With his first big cheque, Lance bought a car. He and Chris roamed through the lots of five different dealers until Lance found the perfect vehicle. They fucked in it the same night, parked in a make-out spot Chris had gone to when he was in college. Lance was so happy sometimes that he thought he would burst with it. 

FuManSkeeto was Chris’s new pride and joy. He said it was him and Dani against the fashion world, and Lance laughed at him, _with_ him. They fucked sometimes with tee-shirts on because it brought joy to Chris’s face, the same type Lance held inside himself. Lance hated that FuManSkeeto only worked with Dani, but she knew was she was doing, and Chris didn’t at all. Chris was so goddamn happy that Lance never complained. 

They spent Christmas apart, which hurt but only in a childish way, but they talked on the phone every day. Their mothers chatted for a good hour each time, and Lance came away from it feeling steady and convinced in the idea of _them_. Chris had plans to come to Lance’s New Years Eve party in New York, but the day before, Chris called and said he couldn’t make it. Business, he said, he had business, and Lance believed him. Of course he did. Lance was in love. 

~~~ 

Sometimes, Lance slept so long that Chris had to wake up, a hand on his arm, shaking him out of it. Chris said he couldn’t always tell if Lance was still there. He breathed so quietly and slept with his eyes opened into narrow slits. Lance fell asleep whenever he sat down, it seemed. He’d wake up with a start, Chris staring at him. He’d be reclined on the couch between Chris’s legs, held protectively against Chris’s body. He’d wake up and think, god, I’m tired, like he hadn’t slept at all, when it felt like he did nothing else. 

“What do you dream about?” 

Lance looked away from the window. He liked to stand by it after they had sex and stare at the sky. Sometimes, he felt like a captive in this house. Not by Chris, but by the people outside, the photographers who wanted to take pictures of the broken man they couldn’t find. When he ventured outside, he felt like everyone was laughing at him. It humiliated him. 

“I dream about things,” Lance said. His breath spread over the glass, and he swirled the tip of his finger through it. “Us, sometimes, and Russia.” 

“I used to have nightmares, ” Chris said softly, “about both those things.” 

“They _were_ nightmares,” Lance said, feeling a bitter smile crack his lips, “both those things.” He laughed roughly, the sort of desperate noise he imagined was heard when people found themselves edging closer to madness, to hysteria. “Why haven’t you made me leave? It’d be better for you, for me, if I just left.” 

“Maybe,” Chris said. 

“Maybe,” Lance echoed. 

The grimace was still all over his face like a mask. Lance didn’t like that it was there, but Chris had always brought out the worst in him just as he brought out the best. Lance stayed by the window and wondered what he was missing and if he had the balls yet to see for himself. 

~~~ 

Lance arrived in Orlando early. He was cranky from lack of sleep and too much booze. It’d been a good party, packed through the roof, enough names to make him look good. When they’d started, Lance had never thought he’d turn into a socialite, someone who truly liked to party, but hanging out with Joey and Chris had demanded he become one. Now, he couldn’t get enough of the buzz it gave him. 

Taking a cab, Lance went straight to Chris’s place, partly to get Dirk but mostly just to say hello. Three fucking days, Lance thought to himself, and laughed. Somebody needed to cut the cord, and Lance was pretty fucking sure it might be him. The only solace he took was in the fact that he’d never be as bad as Britney and Justin. Chris wouldn’t let him. Chris was careful about things like that. 

Lance let himself in and petted the dogs when they came running up, yipping happily to see him. He could hear Dirk skittering around his cage, agitated and high-strung as usual. Slipping off his shoes, he smiled to himself and started to climb the stairs. The dogs raced ahead, bumping into each other and off the wall. He laughed and put his hand on the door. The smile drained from his face like blood through a wound. 

Later, he’d think how lucky he was he hadn’t caught them fucking, but right then, he felt his heart crack right down the centre. Chris and Dani, in bed together, their naked skin lit with the glow of new morning light. Lance wasn’t surprised. Later, he would hate himself for not being surprised, but he remembered Chris’s warning. Chris had always said he would find some way to fuck a perfect thing up. Funny, though, how it still ripped Lance apart from the inside. 

Lance went downstairs and microwaved himself a cup of lukewarm coffee. He dropped his cell as he tried to pluck it from the clip on his belt. Dazed, Lance picked it up from the floor and tried phoning Joey, who didn’t answer. He tried JC next and got him, fresh from sleep, speaking garbled confusion. 

“weh? lance? is’sat you?” 

“Can you pick me up from Chris’s house?” Lance repeated slowly. “Please, Jayce.” 

“‘right there, man.” 

In the living room, cradled in the old couch Chris still had from his college days, Lance took the dogs into his lap and tried not to look around. There were things of his in that house, like the big fern by the door and the leather chair Chris liked to watch football in so much. I will have to take those back, Lance thought numbly. 

Lance had hoped to leave before Chris came down, but he heard them on the stairs, talking quietly, quickly. He’d never liked Dani. Lance could say it now, that he’d hated her from the moment he met her, that he hoped she burned in hell. It was easier to direct his anger at her because she’d always had it, but how strange it was to hate Chris just as much. 

JC burst through the door and scared them, Lance could tell from the way they jumped back. Dani was only half-dressed, like Chris had tried to push her from the house before she was ready to leave, and JC stared at her before shaking his head. “Lance told me to pick him up.” 

“He’s not back in Orlando yet.” 

Lance laughed at that, louder than he intended, and when Chris looked over, Lance stopped. Lance was already standing, though he didn’t remember getting up, and when Chris approached him, Lance shook his head sharply. “No. No, Chris.” 

“I was drunk,” Chris said. “Lance, please, I was drunk. It didn’t mean anything.” 

“You warned me,” Lance said, stepping back when Chris stepped closer. A dance with distance, Lance thought, and curled his fingers into fists. When Chris tried to speak again, JC stopped him with a sharp shake of his head. 

That morning, Lance walked out of the house with nothing that he’d come with. He’d get everything later, his stuff and his pet, when his legs didn’t feel quite so shaky, when he could feel his hands. Right then, Lance didn’t feel much of anything at all. 

~~~ 

It was as if two years apart, without ever being allowed to have distance, had formed some bridge of understanding between them. Lance was less puzzled by it than Chris was, as if it was something of his own creation. Maybe it was. Lance needed to communicate ideas he didn’t know the script to; Chris needed to understand songs that weren’t being sung. 

“We’ve never talked about it.” 

Lance didn’t have to ask to know what Chris meant. “There wasn’t much to talk about.” 

“Most people would have tried to work it out,” Chris said. 

“We weren’t most people,” Lance said, getting out of bed. He felt naked and glorious. There had been times when he’d felt shy around Chris, not when they had been with the group and running around buck, but when they had been alone. It’d lasted long after they’d gotten together. “It’s done. It’s over. I’ve moved past it.” 

“Have you?” 

“I’m here, aren’t I?” Lance asked. He didn’t turn around. If he wasn’t in bed, he was at the window. The more he stayed inside, the less he wanted to go out. The more he wanted to blame this all on Chris, the less he did. “There was something about Russia I didn’t tell you. It was how much time I had to think.” 

“It must have been lonely,” Chris said. Lance looked back at that, to where Chris was sitting on the bed, cross-legged, naked. Lance’s eyes drifted to his dick, like he hadn’t seen it before, then to his face. “These last two years have been–” 

“Lonely,” Lance said quietly. Chris nodded. Once upon a time, Lance would have asked what gave him the right to feel bad, but that was then. This was now. Things changed, and Lance grew up. “I know why I’m here, Chris. I’m just waiting for you to realise it.” 

“First,” Chris said, “I just have to believe it.” 

~~~ 

They didn’t tell anyone at first. Justin and Joey knew something was up, but JC had agreed to keep the secret and didn’t let it leak. Chris was angry, lashing out at anyone who talked to him, and Lance was constantly drinking. Not enough to make him stupid, but enough that his mind was fuzzy, and he was able to smile. It was hard to pretend things were all right, but the world was allowed to fall apart after the interview with Larry King and not a minute sooner. 

It was the most painful interview of his life. JC clutched his hand under the table and kept him there, in the now and not in dark misery. Later, Lance would look at the video and notice how close they were sitting. Lance had spent the whole hour practically in JC’s lap, quiet and subdued, as Chris talked openly about his pain. Originally, they’d been slated to sit next to each other. Lance had that changed the moment he found out. 

When Chris blurted out, “Lance is dating me,” Lance just smiled mechanically and said, moments later, “I date everyone.” Inside, his heart beat faster than it ever had before, and he felt dizzy, nauseous and angry. He dug his nails into JC’s skin without realising he was doing it. Only later, when he saw the marks, did he realise what he had done, what he’d lost, what he would never have again. Lance felt, deep in his bones, the finality of a bitter end. 

~~~ 

The thing about Chris that Lance had always been attracted to was his musicality. JC and Justin and Joey had the glow too, but not like Chris, who had sung longer than any of them and done it even when it meant he had to live poor. Chris was the kind of boy that his momma would have clucked her tongue at, the boy with more smarts than you could shake a stick at and did nothing with them. Chris could have been anything, but he chose to be a singer. 

“Sing me something,” Chris said, and Lance looked over at him. 

Lance hadn’t even known that Chris was in the room, let alone sitting beside him on the piano bench. The keys under Lance’s fingers were chilled from the low temperature that Chris kept the house at during the night. He’d been playing idle tunes, melodies his fingers remembered more than his mind, and hadn’t realised he’d woken Chris up. 

“Always hated an audience, didn’t you,” Chris murmured, poking his finger at the piano, the same high note played over and over again. Lance grabbed that finger and pulled it away, holding it in the vice of his fist. “I don’t know why, Lance. You feel it just as much as the rest of us. I got that message you left, with the song. You never had to tell me, man. I knew.” 

“You didn’t come,” Lance said softly. He’d almost forgotten he ever left it. 

“You needed to finish, man, but if you hadn’t, I would have been there in an instant.” 

Lance nodded, but he couldn’t force any more words from his throat. One wrong move, he kept thinking, and brought Chris’s hand to his lips, plugging his mouth. Chris leaned forward and tried to kiss the truth from him, hoping to hook it with his tongue. Though Lance kissed him back, he couldn’t let it go. 

~~~ 

The concept of them, Chris and Lance, was almost too easy, too perfect. They were in the same band. They spent all their time together anyway, so it was just natural to go one step further. In theory, it’d been the simplest solution. Freddy had been complex. Lance had hated him more than he liked him, and Lance’s world had never been altered by Freddy’s presence in it. Figuring out Freddy’s role in Lance’s life had proved impossible. 

Lance had never needed to question why Chris was there, though he still found it difficult to explain. He had just always intuitively understood Chris’s purpose, and he knew it hadn’t just been because the group dynamic made it so easy. The only problem with them, Chris and Lance, was how fragile it all seemed, how haunted by failure and fear of loss, but that was something they’d always had in common. Lance asked Chris how he could stand it. 

“It’s all relative. I mean, Nsync worked out,” Chris replied and shrugged. He was crouched at the side of his Honda. There was a black smear of oil across his cheek. “I wouldn’t say I’m a total loser. I’ve had a run of bad luck, sure, but things do work out, occasionally. Hell, I finished college, and I’m fucking rich.” 

Chris had written that somewhere in one of his yearbooks. It’d been the first thing he’d shown Lance, years ago, when Lance first moved into his room in that tiny house in Orlando. It’d been his proof that Nsync would succeed: his degree was already nailed to the wall, framed. 

“What if the group is a fluke?” 

Chris looked up and dragged the back of his hand across his mouth, leaving another smear at the corner of his lips. “Sometimes, Bass, you just have to have faith that there are happy endings out there. Perseverance, Lance, was made for idiots like us.” 

“And if nothing ever works out for you, if Nsync is the one thing?” 

“Then it’s a pretty fucking great thing, I guess. I don’t know,” Chris said. When he stood, Lance’s eyes rested on his forehead. Another line, above his left brow, and Lance spit on his thumb and wiped the mark clean. “I don’t think you’re going to fail at everything you do.” 

“I didn’t say I would,” Lance muttered, but Chris had caught him. 

“And there are such things as second chances, aren’t there?” 

Lance nodded, and Chris kissed him, below the slope of his jaw, and unbuttoned his shirt. They fucked right there, a slow grinding dance on the floor of Chris’s garage, the concrete cold against Lance’s back. He grabbed at Chris’s shoulders one-handed. The other hand held them together. After a while, Lance couldn’t remember which dick was Chris’s and which was his own. They both felt familiar against his fingers, and that much he had already known anyway. 

~~~ 

Lance cried one last time the day the rocket safely came down. He watched it on the Internet, tears blurring his sight. Chris sat behind him, arms low around Lance’s waist, and kissed the back of Lance’s neck comfortingly. Lance had wanted so bad to be on that ship. He’d almost killed himself training, and his body still bore the scars. Too thin, too pale. He cried for the unfairness of it all and didn’t let himself feel bad about it. 

Later, they sat in the backyard together, the shade of night and climbing vines protecting them from the world. JC had called, and Lance had talked and laughed with him. Joey and Justin too, telling him stories to keep his mind from the true scope of his failure. What they didn’t know, what he couldn’t tell them yet, was the growing knowledge of success, but Lance thought they already knew. It was hard to keep the happiness from his voice, even when the sadness tried to silence it. Lance hadn’t felt this hopeful in a very long time. 

Lance could almost pinpoint when it had happened. The moment of forgiveness. He’d stepped into that airport terminal, his shoulders slumped in defeat, a stranger for a boyfriend, and he’d been profoundly aware of his own unhappiness, his own failures. Lance hadn’t known, getting on that plane, forgiveness would lead him right back to Chris, but he had to trust that sometimes things he wanted really did work out. Nsync was the first, and Chris would be the second. When they had finished, they hadn’t been done. Lance understood that now. 

When Lance told him that, Chris kissed him behind the ear. It was the lingering kind of touch that said more than words ever would. Lance felt calm, even though the stars laughed at him. He smiled back at them and pushed against Chris until Lance could feel Chris’s heart thumping against his back. They laced their fingers together and watched the sky.


End file.
